“Now the campaign truly is behind us, and that’s where we need to leave it,” Scott said in a statement. “We must do what Americans have always done: come together for the good of our state and our country. My focus will not be on looking backward, but on doing exactly what I ran on: making Washington work.”

Trump posted a congratulatory tweet on Scott’s victory. “From day one Rick Scott never wavered. He was a great Governor and will be even a greater Senator in representing the People of Florida. Congratulations to Rick on having waged such a courageous and successful campaign!”

In his video statement, Nelson, who never mentioned Scott by name, was less conciliatory.

“I will continue to fight on and on for the inalienable human rights that are the soul and glory of the American experiment: civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, and the sacred right to vote," Nelson said.

From day one Rick Scott never wavered. He was a great Governor and will be even a greater Senator in representing the People of Florida. Congratulations to Rick on having waged such a courageous and successful campaign!

In another close statewide contest, Democrat Nikki Fried hung on through the recount process to defeat Republican Matt Caldwell in the agriculture commission race by 6,753 votes out of more than 8 million cast. She will replace Nelson as the only Democrat holding statewide office in Florida.

Nelson's loss to Scott was only the second loss in a career that has included 14 election victories.

But Nelson's longevity was not enough to overcome the millions of dollars of Rick Scott's personal fortune that the former health care CEO poured into the race. Scott used a good portion of the $64 million of his own money he put into the campaign on TV ads decrying Nelson as a "career politician." One noted that the Ford Pinto was the most popular car in America when Nelson was first elected.

Scott, on the other hand, has run for office just three times, winning two terms as governor before seeking the Senate seat. The fact the he won each race by a margin of 1.2 percentage points or less illustrates how closely divided the state's voters are.

Confusing Broward ballot

In fact, had it not been for a poorly designed ballot in Broward County, the Senate race likely would have been even closer than it was.

In Broward, a Democratic stronghold, some 30,000 voters didn’t record a choice in the Senate, an unusually high number for such a high-profile race.

Nelson's recount hopes rested on discovering that those "undervotes" were the result of machine-counting errors. But both machine and manual recounts showed that in the vast majority of cases, voters simply left the race blank.

The most likely reason: The Senate race, the first listed, was on the lower left corner of the ballot, below voter instructions, a placement that could have made it easy to overlook, especially for infrequent voters not well-versed in the election process.

Had those 30,000 voters followed the rest in the county, who gave nearly seven out of 10 votes to Nelson, the margin would likely have been in the hundreds, not thousands, and possibly could have given Nelson the win.

Low voter turnout in heavily Republican Bay County, which was devastated by Hurricane Michael in October, likely also depressed Scott's vote, making the final margin closer than it otherwise would have been.

This year's drama marked the second time in less than two decades that the rest of the country looked on while Florida struggled with elections results.

In 2000, the legal battles over the presidential election results dragged on until the middle of December until the U.S. Supreme Court shut down recount battles, essentially handing the state — and the White House — to George W. Bush who won the Sunshine State by 537 votes over Al Gore.

This year's recounts went much smoother in part due to changes in state law that detailed when and how recounts were to be conducted. The lack of such uniform standards were at the heart of many of the legal battles in 2000.

The state and federal governments also helped counties upgrade aging election equipment following the 2000 election.

But the strain on the system of conducting three simultaneous statewide recounts — never before had even one been done — and legal battles over absentee and provisional ballots showed there are still improvements to be made.

Incoming Florida Senate President Bill Galvano said Friday that lawmakers will discuss changes to the state’s election laws.

By the next election cycle, he said, “voters are going to want to have more in terms of assurance that their votes are going to be properly counted.”

Recount issues

Among the problems that arose during the recount:

How to verify signatures on absentee and provisional ballots? Currently, election officials simply compare signatures on such ballots with signatures they have on file. But lawsuits pointed out that signatures change over time and election officials have no particular expertise in handwriting analysis.

How long should absentee ballots be accepted? Those coming from within the United States must be received by 7 p.m. on election day while those coming from overseas can be accepted up to 10 days after the polls close. In both cases, the ballots need to be postmarked no later than election day.

The time line for recounts. Election workers toiled around the clock for days after a machine recount was ordered in the Senate, governor and agriculture commission races. Three of the state's 67 counties didn't complete their recounts by the state-mandated deadline. Manual recounts were much smoother, but those only involved the 90,000 or so ballots showing no or too many candidates marked in a race, not the more than 8 million cast statewide.

A bigger issue is the state's election equipment. The new technology introduced post-2000 to replace antiquated voting machine is now also becoming outdated. Mechanical problems played a role in Palm Beach, Broward and Hillsborough counties missing the machine-recount deadline.

Grants from the state and federal governments helped counties upgrade their voting equipment following the 2000 election, but counties have been responsible for maintaining and upgrading it, costs they typically put off for as long as possible.

"They are going to have to deal with technology and how to pay for it," said Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida. "Now the counties have to pay for it and election equipment is very expensive."

Scott will join fellow Republican Marco Rubio in the Senate Jan. 3. It will be the first time since Reconstruction that Florida has had two GOP senators.

Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera will fill out the final days of Scott's term as governor until DeSantis takes office Jan. 8

It's unclear what's next for Nelson, who grew up in Brevard County.

He has continued to call the Space Coast "home" throughout his career, though he hasn't lived here since being elected Insurance Commissioner in 1994. He still owns land in Malabar, though he lives in Orlando when not in Washington.